Files and media library

The Files library is the single home for every piece of media in your store — product photos, lifestyle shots, marketing videos, embedded YouTube and Vimeo clips, PDFs, and downloadable documents. Anything you upload here can be reused anywhere: on a product, in a page or blog post, as a theme asset, or inside a metafield file field. Upload once, reference everywhere.

You’ll find it under Content → Files in the seller dashboard.

Note

The Files page is your library manager — the place to browse, search, edit alt text, and clean up. When you’re building a product or a page, you don’t have to come here first: the same media picker is available inline, and anything you upload there lands back in this library automatically.

What the library is for

Every file lives in one shared pool. The same image can be the hero on a product page, a featured image on a blog post, and the value of a File metafield, all without re-uploading. That’s why deleting a file warns you it will be “removed from all places it’s being used in your store” — there’s only one copy.

Files are typed automatically so they’re easy to find and filter:

• Images — JPG, PNG, WebP, and other web image formats.
• Videos — uploaded video files (hosted on your store).
• Video links — external YouTube or Vimeo URLs, embedded rather than hosted.
• Audio — uploaded sound files.
• PDFs and Documents — including DOC/DOCX, TXT, EPUB, ZIP, and similar.
• 3D models — GLB, GLTF, and USDZ files for product 3D and AR.
• Other — anything that doesn’t fit the categories above.

Upload files

Click Upload files (top right of the Files page) to open the media picker. It has three tabs: Upload new, Library, and Video link.

Upload from your device

1. On the Files page, click Upload files.

2. On the Upload new tab, drag files onto the drop zone, or click Choose files to open your file browser and select one or more files.

3. Each file shows a progress state — Pending → Uploading → Processing — as it’s transferred and prepared. Large images and videos generate previews in the background.

4. When uploads finish, close the picker. The new files appear at the top of your library (with Newest first sorting).

Add a video link

To embed an external video instead of hosting it yourself:

1. Open Upload files and switch to the Video link tab.

2. Paste a YouTube or Vimeo URL.

3. Add the link. It’s stored as a Video link file you can drop into product galleries and pages — the player is embedded from the source, so it doesn’t count against your hosted media.

Tip

Video links are ideal for long-form or marketing videos you already host on YouTube or Vimeo. Use uploaded Videos when you want the clip served directly from your store.

While a file is being prepared you may see a Processing badge; once previews are ready it switches to Ready. If something goes wrong, the file shows Needs attention with the failure reason — re-upload or replace it.

Edit alt text and file details

Click any file’s name to open its details view. Alt text is the most important field to fill in here.

1. Open a file from the library list.

2. In the details panel, edit the Name and Alt text fields. Alt text describes the image for screen readers and search engines — write a short, plain description of what the image shows.

3. For images, you can also set a focal point: turn on Edit focal point and drag the marker to the part of the image that should stay centred when the storefront crops it to different shapes.

4. Click Save.

Tip

Good alt text helps both accessibility and SEO. Describe the subject naturally (“Hand-block-printed cotton kurta in indigo”) rather than stuffing keywords. See SEO for how product and image descriptions feed discovery.

The details panel also shows read-only metadata: file type, image dimensions, size, and when the file was added, updated, and processed. For non-image files (videos, PDFs, documents) you can upload a custom Thumbnail image so previews look right in galleries and pickers.

Find files

As your library grows, use search, filters, and sorting to find what you need.

Search

Type into the Search box at the top of the list to match by file name. The results count updates as you type.

Filter by type and size

Click Advanced to reveal filters:

• Type — tick any combination of Images, Videos, Video links, Audio, PDFs, Documents, and Other.
• File size (MB) — enter a Min and/or Max in megabytes to narrow the list to files in a size range (handy for hunting down oversized images that slow your storefront).

Use Clear filters to reset Type and size back to showing everything.

Sort

Use the sort dropdown to reorder the list:

• Newest first / Oldest first
• File name A–Z / File name Z–A
• Smallest first / Largest first

Sorting by Largest first is the quickest way to spot heavy files worth compressing or replacing.

Copy a file’s URL

Every file has a public URL you can paste into emails, theme code, or external tools.

1. In the library list, open the More actions menu (the vertical-dots icon) at the end of a file’s row.

2. Choose Copy link. The direct URL is copied to your clipboard and a “Link copied” confirmation appears.

3. From the same menu you can Open the file in a new tab to view it directly. To save a copy, open the file’s details view and use Download.

Caution

File URLs are public — anyone with the link can open the file. Don’t store private documents in the Files library expecting them to be access-controlled. For paywalled or per-customer downloads, use digital products instead.

Replace and delete

• Replace an image — from a file’s More actions menu, choose Replace image and pick a new file. The replacement keeps the same place in your store, so everything already pointing at it updates at once. (Replace is available for images.)
• Delete — select one or more files (tick their checkboxes) and click Delete, or use Delete from a single file’s menu. Deletion is permanent and removes the file from every place it’s used, so check the references first.

Where files get used

The library feeds the rest of your store. The same picker that opens from Upload files also appears when you:

• Add or edit product and collection images and videos.
• Set a featured image on a page or blog post under Content.
• Fill a File metafield value (for example a size-chart PDF or a designer photo on a metaobject) — see Metafields & metaobjects.
• Reference an image from the theme editor or theme settings.

Because it’s one shared pool, organising your library well — clear file names, filled alt text, no duplicate or oversized files — pays off everywhere those files appear.

Troubleshooting

• A file is stuck on “Processing.” Previews are generated in the background; give large videos and high-resolution images a moment, then refresh. If it switches to Needs attention, read the failure reason and re-upload.
• “Needs attention” / upload failed. The file type may be unsupported, or the file may be corrupt or too large. Try re-saving it from your image or video editor and uploading again.
• A deleted file left a blank image on the storefront. Files are shared, so deleting one removes it everywhere it was used. Re-upload the file (or pick a replacement) and re-add it on the affected product, page, or metafield.
• Can’t find a file you know you uploaded. Clear Search and Clear filters in case a type or size filter is hiding it, then sort by Newest first.

Next steps

Add products

Attach library images and videos to products. See Add products.

Metafields & metaobjects

Use files as values in custom fields and content types. See Metafields.

Pages & blog content

Set featured media on pages and posts. See Navigation & content.

Themes & editor

Reference media from your theme. See Themes and the editor.